What is it all about?

Terrific Nana Patekar in weirdly shot been-there-seen-that follow up to the brilliant Shimit Amin 2004 crime epic. Aejaz Gulab rewards the audience of the genre and the fans of the original a shamefully lame uninteresting sequel. ‘Ab Tak Chappan 2’ fails to live up to the original in every way; it’s such a mistake that even Nana Patekar remarkable brilliance fails to rectify.

The Story

Writer Nilesh Girkar just cashes on the original’s novel invention and fails to add any dimension. The original had the familiarities of a B-town crime drama - the politician - underworld - policeman nexus but it was scripted and presented with some elan.

Nilesh Girkar in scripting the follow up sadly fails to build the nostalgia of the original and add any exciting momentum to the sequel.

Sadhu Agashe (Nana Patekar) is happy playing marbles, catching and frying fish in his village in Goa with his teenage son. The ex encounter specialist is awaiting the Court verdict on cases filed against his modus operandi during his operations. Sudden spurt of fresh gang war in Mumbai creates a demand for Sadhu to be back. Home Minister Janardan Jagirdar ( Vikram Gokhale) on advice of senior top bureaucrat played by Mohan Agaashe gets Sadhu back into the helm of affairs. He heads a team which is surrounded by his admirers and a hater in senior cop Suryakant Thorat ( Ashutosh Rana). The clean up acts starts and tension between Sadhu, Dubai based Don Rawal (Raj Zutshi) reveals some disturbing facts.

What to look out for

It’s an out and out Nana’s show. He was Irresistible in the original and here is simply outstanding. At last a crime thriller without a song. Vikram Ghokhale, and Raj Zutshi give good support.

What Not

The list is endless but to cut the story short. The script has minimum imagination. Technically too it’s a blunder. The camera angles are weird. Apart from Sadhu all characters are caricatures giving a feeling that it’s a crime parody. Shocking to see the waste of such immensely gifted talents like Dilip Prabhavalkar, Mohan Agaashe , Ashutosh Rana and Govind Namdev. Like the script Gul Panag’s role is ill-defined.  Apart from Nana Patekar’s heroics there is nothing to be taken home from this sequel as a film. It’s such a sad waste.

Conclusion: Ab Tak Chappan 2 is such a bad news. Director Aejaz Gulab and writer Nilesh Girkar commit a heinous triple crime of screwing two movies at one go and in the process screw a remarkably earnest and honest effort of an actor like Nana Patekar go waste by making such a sequel to Shimit Amin’s  cult crime epic.